Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also wish to record a few words in relation to the Statute Update (Winter 2017) Bill 2017. If we're having a retrospective at the end of the life of this parliament on Hansard's finest moments, I'm very confident that this will not be amongst them. But you'll also be relieved to know that I'm going to build on what's been said by the member for Blair, but I won't turn my attention to each individual clause, because I think we've learnt quite a lot about the war on hyphens. Some of what I want to say is prosaic, but I want to tease out some observations that were started by previous speakers on the government's much vaunted, but lately silent, and possibly hollow, commitment to red tape reduction. There is the concern that they may try to count this towards the deregulation agenda.

Of course we support this bill. It is uncontroversial. It corrects technical errors that have occurred in acts as a result of drafting errors and clerical mistakes, and repeals redundant and obsolete provisions. I know from my former life as a public servant, when involved in the drafting of legislation, that the greatest care is given by very skilled public servants to the drafting of legislation. Bills go through numerous stages of checking and rechecking before reaching this place. Indeed, the only errors that I recall of any substance were when governments rushed legislation for reasons good and bad. It is important, of course, that the drafting is clear to make sure that the intent is clear, that unintended consequences do not arise, that references and language are correct, and that typos and hyphens are hunted down, one by one, and dealt with firmly. But, even with the best procedures and the finest attention to detail, mistakes can happen. Such is the way of human systems and organisations.

As has been said—and it was well remarked upon by the member for Blair—this is not groundbreaking reform. In my view, it's not reform and it is of no real consequence. But, nevertheless it matters. It is important that Commonwealth legislation is correct and as clear, coherent and comprehensible as possible. This sort of bill, soporific as it is, illustrates the largely hidden underbelly of government—the daily grind of the imperfect machine. Curiously, I might note, it gives us as parliamentarians perhaps just a small insight into one of the particular values of the Public Service and those who support the government of the day as it interfaces with the legislative function—that is, the importance of attention to accuracy and detail. Indeed, I learnt that, unlike some other sectors, in the Public Service it is almost invariably more important to be accurate in your advice, your briefing and your drafting than it is to meet an arbitrary deadline. Small errors like this, when discovered, do caused raised eyebrows and sometimes giggles. When picked up, they are collated and fixed periodically. There's a process to do so. There's a process for everything.

With all that said, while the bill itself poses no substantive issues and the war on hyphens continues—and I didn't see any typos when looking through the bill, I was pleased to note, but, nevertheless, maybe there is one—I wish to place on record my expectation that none of this fixing of typos and removing of long-dead clauses and non-operative provisions will be counted by the government towards the red tape reduction or deregulation agenda. I hold some concerns that, when the bill is passed, the government may yet try to claim this as having some economic benefit for their deregulation targets. To do so, if you look at the nature of this bill, would be an absurdity, a nonsense. It would undermine confidence in the focus, delivery and reporting of the deregulation work, such as it is. I say this because I've had a little look into this. The treatment and reporting of the repeal omnibus bills, which under Prime Minister Abbott used to occupy a whole day in the parliament—indeed, this sort of bill, as has been said, would have been in the House of Representatives and the subject of a self-congratulatory press conference, probably flanked by statute books—has not been consistent. In fact, what the government claims towards its deregulation targets remains unfortunately somewhat opaque. I say this because we've heard the headline figures—$4½ billion, or something like that—but there has still been no independent verification of the outcomes of the deregulation agenda, as was promised by the government and, indeed, recommended by the Auditor-General, and it was backed in by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit earlier this year.

With regard to the treatment of bills, in 2014 and 2015 the government was very excited and excitable, undertaking these four repeal days. But it seems that bills that claimed cost saving are those associated primarily with Treasury bills. Annual reports were published for 2014 and 2015. If you're having trouble hearing, you could replay my speech, and, if that isn't working, I'd encourage you to have a look at the deregulation agenda website. It's still up there. The 2015 report explicitly states that the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 3), which also corrected errors, modernised language and repealed redundant provisions, was counted towards the reduction targets and claimed a benefit of $50,000—such must be the impact of misplaced commas and hyphens on productivity in the Australian economy!

There appears to be no sign, however, of an annual report for 2016. The last report was tabled in March 2016 for the year 2015. But we don't know; maybe one will come. Perhaps the government's lost interest in this, or perhaps, as we're seeing in the House day upon day, they've just run out of ideas—or, indeed, as we've seen in the last couple of weeks, it could just be a victim of the general chaos that seems to be engulfing the government. If you want a bit of a giggle, the $122 million household postal opinion survey is always a good one.

Most likely this bill is all they could actually agree on this week, but without understanding what happened in 2016, I could not categorically state—and I think no-one could, unless a minister wants to come in here and give us that assurance—that the government has ceased claiming compliance cost savings figures for this kind of bill. It would be very helpful and welcome to have the minister's assurance and explanation as to whether the government has stopped the questionable practice.

In terms of public confidence in the calculations behind the government's deregulation agenda, it would be improved if the government followed through on their own commitment—it's a promise, a commitment; maybe it's not a core promise—to complete an independent evaluation, and what a read that would be! Indeed, this was a recommendation, as I said, by the Auditor-General in the ANAO report No. 29 2015-16, which was about how the government is implementing the deregulation agenda, cutting red tape. The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit agreed with this in our report No. 460—a rollicking read—entitled Public sector governance, which was tabled in the House by me in February 2017. I will read a couple of relevant quotes from the report:

There is some evidence—

some evidence—

that there is likely to have been a significant net economic benefit from the Deregulation Agenda, however there has not yet been independent verification of the outcomes. Having the extent of this benefit independently quantified would support future regulatory decision-making—

If you think this is important, good practice would say you go back and have an independent look at and scrutinise this $4½ billion worth of claimed savings to support what you do next. It would also have—

… likely positive public administration outcomes. A future, more comprehensive, post-implementation review process would further add to the evidence base for such programs.

…   …   …

While the government has established other review mechanisms for regulatory changes, the Committee notes that those processes will not necessarily include evaluations of the government’s Deregulation Agenda.

…   …   …

The Committee therefore strongly supports the single ANAO recommendation—

Indeed, it was the only recommendation in the report that was completed in 2016—

that PM&C take steps to implement the Australian government's December 2013 decision that the economic impacts of the Deregulation Agenda be assessed within three years—

Which they've failed to do—

In its response to the ANAO report, PM&C advised that 'implementation of this decision is currently being discussed with the Government.

…   …   …

PM&C reiterated the information in its submission to the inquiry and said 'We hope to be able to provide the Committee with an update of these discussions in the first half of 2017'.

As of today, I understand that the assistant minister for regulatory reform has been provided with a report on this matter. So there is hope. Some work may have been done, but it has not been released. So this parliament and the public still have no basis for public confidence through an independent report implementing the government's own commitment—and we're still waiting.

In my final minutes—scintillating as this is—I want to reflect on some of the issues raised by the member for Blair as to whether there is, in fact, a better way for this parliament to deal with the statute law revision bills that come up periodically. Indeed, from reading the Bills Digest and doing a little research, it appears there is a better way. In 2015, the First Parliamentary Counsel gained a power under amendments to the Legislative Act 2003 to make unilateral changes where they are of no substantive effect. I thought, 'That's interesting. What kind of changes could the First Parliamentary Counsel, indeed, make without sending us legislation and clogging up the business of the House?' The First Parliamentary Counsel has the power to make changes about things like matters of spelling, punctuation, grammar or syntax, or the use of conjunctions and disjunctions. The First Parliamentary Counsel could have moved the hyphens and the semicolons—all without it coming to this House. The First Parliamentary Counsel could update a reference, numbers, re-number legislative provisions, change the way that things are expressed, omit provisions or, indeed, get rid of expired, spent or redundant provisions. The First Parliamentary Counsel could have got out the pen and corrected minor errors—all of this provided, of course, that they do not make any substantive change which would affect the operation and impact of the act or an instrument. And, of course, the editorial powers, quite rightly, should be used sparingly.

The Bills Digest for the Statute Law Revision (Spring 2016) Bill 2016—the previous version of this, I venture—said that the basis on which one of these approaches is favoured over another, whether coming here in a revision bill or being done through an amendment tacked on to another bill or, indeed, using the First Parliamentary Counsel's editorial power, is unclear. To quote it:

It is evident that statute law revision legislation and FPC’s editorial change powers under the Legislation Act can cover the same type of subject matter.

But:

… it is not entirely clear when one of these mechanisms will be applied (or ought to be applied) in preference to the other.

So it's clear, when you have a look at the nonsense that is in this bill—which I hope, as we've gone through, will not be claimed as some kind of economic benefit or saving towards the government's deregulation agenda—and when you have a look at what is actually proposed for this chamber on behalf of the House to tick off, it's entirely unclear why it's even here.

It's reasonable to speculate that, with these powers being relatively new—I guess, in the last couple of years—a conservative approach may be taken by the First Parliamentary Counsel, perhaps to build confidence in the House. However, the act, of course, requires periodic—I think six monthly—reporting to the House on the use of these powers, as is appropriate. Changes to laws, even hyphens, can be no small thing. Of course, semicolons and commas can, to be fair, influence the interpretation of an act. I do remember from the little bits of attention I paid at law school that commas can change the meaning of clauses and so on, as can conjunctions. But where changes are clearly typographical—numerical corrections, changes to expression—then it is entirely unclear to me why this government would persist in asking the House to spend time, parliamentary time. There are many other matters. The previous Deputy Speaker pulled the member for Blair up for relevance, so I've been very careful not to stray into electorate matters and have pot shots at all the other things the government could do. We've had no more talk of the foreign conspiracy theories that occupied the House today. Speaking of Hansard, as we have in here, I am still wondering whether 'Blue Steel' or 'Magnum' may be recorded in the Hansard in relation to the foreign minister's look to the House, which we were all transfixed by. We'll wait and see when the Hansard comes out.

In closing, I would say to whoever reads this Hansardhopefully the First Parliamentary Counsel and the people involved—that I for one, and I suspect others in the House, would welcome the use of the power to amend acts to make minor editorial changes without having to waste our time in this Chamber when there are more important things to do.

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